


Aradia: Watch

by muchlessvermillion



Series: Alternian Nights [3]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Sgrub Session, Character Death, Gen, Implied Relationships, Pale Romance | Moirallegiance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-06
Updated: 2016-08-06
Packaged: 2018-07-29 17:08:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 681
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7692661
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/muchlessvermillion/pseuds/muchlessvermillion
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sollux Captor is going to die, someday.<br/>This much you know, you have always known: everyone is going to die someday. From high to low, from strong to weak, they all die.</p>
<p>Aradia may be dead, but she is not gone. Not yet.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Aradia: Watch

Sollux Captor is going to die, someday.

This much you know, you have always known: everyone is going to die someday. From high to low, from strong to weak, they all die. You spoke to a variety of ghosts when you were alive, and now that you're dead yourself you speak to many more. Death never scared you. It was the way you died that was a bother.

But Sollux Captor will die someday.

You spend time sneaking into his dreams to dispel advice, to assess his wounds, to steer him in what you think- you hope, you believe is the right direction. You watch with affection pale and scolding like the glare of the Alternian sun off the ocean. You try to make him do better. He never does. Your boy, your love and your killer, he's a liar and a planner and he works so hard for everyone but himself. You watch because you think if you don't he might cut things off earlier than he should.

He always was sort of an idiot, for all the gray matter packed into that skinny little pan.

You had been there to talk him down, when you were alive. But now you had to leave that task in other hands, capable and warm and hopefully enough.

Dying didn't hurt. You weren't sad you had to go. It was, after all, a whole new adventure, like Tavros's Pupa Pan had said. But Sollux seemed so lost and hopeless and small without you near, more than you had ever expected. And then there was the guilt, the rage, the tearing at his hair. The revenge cycle stopped with your death only because Sollux couldn't stop blaming himself long enough to truly blame Vriska until long after the deepest of the wounds had healed. By then she was gone, out of his reach, which was for the best.

Do you want revenge on Vriska Serket? You couldn't quite say. Sometimes, you do. Sometimes, you're angry at Tavros instead, for letting her stay after what she did to him, after what she did to you, after what she keeps on, continues on, hasn't stopped doing to him. Sometimes you're not mad at anybody. The afterlife is like that. It's hard to keep hold of emotions for very long. Or maybe it's just like that for you- ghost girl, caught in between. Maybe if you moved on, you'd find them again. Your rage. Your righteousness. Your love.

But it's 0k. Even when the emotion is weakest, a whisper in the wind, just a footstep at the door, the sense of duty remains. You keep your duty to Sollux even when you can't remember why. You follow and cajole and sneak hints into his dreams even when you can't quite bring yourself to feel what you should. You slip into his subconscious even though he can't quite know you're there -it'd do more harm than good- and you stroke sleep-warm cheeks and move his face off his keyboard when he slumps there late, fingers stained with artificial flavoring and body curled in for comfort. You watch, invisible, unable to participate in the great big rush of what they're trying to do, and sometimes you feel nearly hopeful.

You won't be there for it. But maybe others will be. Maybe, if they succeed, time can stop looping in its desperate, lopsided circles. History does not have to repeat itself.

And when you slip into Sollux's dreams and see hints of what he's thinking, planning, plotting? Squirming pink biowares and pinned hands and metal, so much metal, all pressed into split, warm skin? Circles of yellow blood, surgical knives, the crackle of electricity? Karkat's broad hot hands curled around skinny hips, his salty red-tinted tears, the curl of his tongue by his teeth when he speaks? That flash of gray and pink and velvet soft underbelly under his shirt, and the hurt in his shaking voice, and the empress's symbol seared like a brand across ships and skin?

Well, that's 0k too. Everyone will die someday. Even Sollux Captor.


End file.
